Whispered Words, In Health and in Sickness
by Phoenix18
Summary: A short fic concerning Uriko and Kenji. Having consumated ther love, Uriko's world is shattered when it transpires that the whole school seems to have found out. Does Kenji even love her, or is she just a trophy? Big thanks to Tiger5913 for the support
1. Chapter 1

Greets all. This'n be my debut fic, the first I've ever actually completed :s Sad, but true. It's more of a test-the-waters work to see how well I can actually write stuff, rather than anything majorly serious, so don't expect anything too grandiose. It's in two chapters for ease of reading only – I wrote it as one long single chapter as it's only a short story as opposed to a full-blown fic with all the trimmings. And the ending is appalling. I'm sorry, but it really is. My original ending was supposed to be funny, but after everything that happens it just seemed awkward... I spent the better part of six weeks agonizing over how to end it before just making up some lame extra scene. So apologies. Nyway, other than that, read and review, please ï And I want AT LEAST TWO CRITICISMS per 'chapter' from every reviewer ;) In particular, for this section, comments on the following would be helpful:

- Uriko's breakdown outside the school: Is it descriptive enough? Emotive enough? It seemed a tad shallow to me. Subsequent ones also would merit comment.

- Metaphors n stuff, especially the one regarding the 'tsunami of grief': do they work?

- The structure seems a little... loose. Explanations and descriptions being a little obscure. Am I just being paranoid?

- Dodgy spelling doesn't count, although mention it by all means. I just don't want people worming out of real criticism by mentioning that I put an a instead of an e :P.

Anyways... read!

Whispered words, in Health and in Sickness . Part one.

Uriko whipped round in astonishment and her half-opened locker door flew from her hand, smashing against it's neighbour with a hollow booming crash of metal that drew startled glances from the pressing crowd of schoolkids surging around her. She didn't care. At that second, she didn't care about anything - if a nuclear blast had ripped through the school at this very instant and annihilated everything and everyone around her, she'd have barely spared the carnage a passing glance. Her eyes were bugging almost cartoon-esque as in a voice bordering on a shriek she exclaimed "You heard _what_?!"

That drew still more puzzled stares from the gathering crowd; she ignored them, her attention fixed like a hawk on a mouse – like a cat on a mouse - on the girl standing calmly before her, one Lucy Walters, who let out a high-pitched giggle at Uriko's stunned expression. Slightly older than Uriko, Lucy was the single most sought-after girl in the entire school; by guys who wanted to date her, and by girls who wanted to rip her head off and feed it to a pack of rabid wolves, Uriko included and especially so now. Her lithe and graceful figure was clad in a delicate, hugging dress that revealed just slightly more of her fulsome bust and legs than was strictly decent, and her hair, summer-sun blonde, seemed not to hang so much as cascade from her head and across her shoulders, like a molten river of gold. Unlike the other girls in school, however, Uriko didn't care a fig about the fact that Lucy's movie-star looks turned the guys into drooling imbeciles whenever she passed them in the corridors - insofar as Uriko could tell most of them were practically drooling imbeciles from the outset, and she'd sooner have taken a razor-blade enema than even consider a date with any of them. No, what pissed Uriko off was that as some sort of counterbalance to her stunning figure God had seen fit to bestow upon the blonde bimbo an IQ just slightly lower than your average brick and a towering complex of arrogance that could be measured only in light-years. Whenever she was in the room you could _feel_ yourself getting stupider by proxy.

And then there was what she'd just said.

"Oh, come _on_, Riko, you deaf?" Lucy replied through her airy laughter. "I _said_, Gemma'd heard Kenjo saying to one of his friends that you and he had, like, slept together?"

This time, she'd said it loud enough that the crowd gathered around to watch the spectacle heard too, and a chorus of catcalls, whistles and shouts of "Riko for Kenji!" – although _they_ at least got his name right – filled the corridor. Uriko barely heard a word of it. She had gone cold, completely numb with shock. Perhaps I'm seeing things, she thought. Perhaps that bang of my locker door was actually my head hitting the locker, and right now I'm unconscious on the floor, or being stretchered to the medical room, and all this is a hallucination...

Please _God_, let it be a hallucination!

But no; off in the distance she could still hear the whistling, the laughter and the shouting of the crowd, could see through a misty haze their slobbery leering faces; and through it all Lucy's grin, Lucy's smug and bitchy grin, and Lucy's giggling, a high-pitched gurgling that sawed against her eardrums like a piglet being throttled - Everything, in a horrible clarity no hallucination could hope to reproduce.

How could this have happened?

Kenji had... talked?

"So come _on_, Riko," Lucy's smug, imperious voice cut through her reverie, "Tell us all; is it true or not?"

"Hey, Uriko!" a voice yelled from the crowd. "Does this mean you won't be my sexy kitty anymore?" There was a burst of laughter.

Uriko's fist smashed into the locker next to her with such force that it crumpled like tinfoil. The noise was like a thunderclap in the confined space and the jeering crowd silenced like a muted TV set.

The sudden quiet was punctuated by a forlorn creaking as the locker door swung slowly open; then it parted from it's hinges with an almost defeated air and clattered with a metallic complaint to the floor, where it lay, rocking gently on it's convex surface.

Twenty pairs of eyes rocked in tandem, hypnotized.

Uriko turned, slowly, and glared sheer murder into the shocked faces.

The crowd pulled back in startled fear as they met her gaze. Her face was changing, warping; her normally chocolate-brown irises flashed with golden fire, her pupils narrowed and slitted, her teeth elongated, vampire-like, glittering with a dangerous light. Her voice hovering just above a whisper, she snarled, "Fuck. Off. _Now_."

The crowd dissolved like a sugar mountain in a thunderstorm, people fleeing up the corridors as fast as their dignity would allow, casting nervous glances over their shoulders as they went.

"H...hey, come on, Riko..." Lucy stammered from behind, her usual blithely arrogant tones subdued from sudden fear - Uriko was amazed the dumb bitch had enough brains to recognize when to be afraid and oh boy, did she have reason now. "It's not like it's _that_ big a deal, is it...?"

Uriko whirled with an inhuman speed and seized Lucy's delicate throat, smashing her with stunning force into the racks of lockers with a hollow booming crash that echoed like a death toll through the empty corridor. Lucy, a girl who's first, last and only line of defense was a soprano-class scream that brought everyone within 10 miles to their knees, could manage only a gurgling shriek as the vice-like grip about her neck tightened, cutting off her air supply. Her legs flailed uselessly six inches from the ground.

Uriko leaned forwards, an evil smile on her lips. Her transformation hadn't completed fully - she hadn't been stupid enough to lose _all_ her self-control, thank you very much - so she was missing fur and a tail, but to be honest she didn't really need those to scare the hell out of the girl; she could _smell_ the terror radiating from her like the two dozen brands of perfume Lucy dosed herself with each morning. But so much sweeter. Oh, _so_ much sweeter.

"In answer to your question, Lucy, dear," Uriko purred almost seductively as she gazed into her petrified eyes, wide and white as full moon, "No, we did not sleep together. Nor do we have any intention of sleeping together." _Yes,_ her inner voice shouted, _Of course we damn well slept together! In fact, we didn't just 'sleep together' - only bimbos like you and the dumbass jocks who pay you go to 'sleep together'. No, we had SEX. One hundred percent pure loving amazing SEX! And, by God, I'd do anything to do so again! _

_But, by God, if Kenji's been bragging about it then by the time I'm through with him he won't be CAPABLE of doing it again!_

Her feline eyes twitched slightly as the rage of emotions surged up within her, but she continued smoothly. "Now then, I'm going to give you a friendly little warning, one girl to another and all that. I know you're a health freak, so I'll advise you that spreading any nasty rumours about either me or Kenji can be very unhealthy - I hear it plays hell with your neckline." Uriko flexed her fingers and her claws unsheathed slowly, pressing dangerously against Lucy's throbbing throat, who squeaked in terror. Uriko leaned even closer until their faces were a millimetre apart, and smiled - or at least, parted her lips. Her incisors glittered. "Get the point?"

Lucy's head twitched forwards fractionally, the best nod she could manage without tearing her throat open, and Uriko dropped her. She hit the floor and collapsed to her knees, clutching her reddened neck and gulping air in hoarse, ragged rasps. Uriko reached into her doorless locker - there'd be some questions about that later on, no doubt about it, but for now she couldn't care less - and pulled out her schoolbag.

"Oh, one other thing," she added as she slung her bag onto her shoulder with a practiced ease, "It's 'Uriko'. With a 'U'. I'm only Riko to my friends." Without sparing her another glance, she turned and strode away down the corridor towards the glass double-doors that heralded the building's exit, leaving Lucy staring after her.

Only once she was through the doors and around the corner did she allow her self-control to slip; her knees buckled and she collapsed against the wall, hot tears springing to her eyes, a half-sob heaving from her chest.

Kenji had been... had been... _bragging?_

No!

She felt another sob hammering it's way up through her system and she bit it down - if it came up she'd start crying and then she'd never be able to stop, not even if she died. Her mind was reeling, as if she'd been slapped, _Smack!_ right across the face by someone she trusted. Which was exactly what had happened.

_Kenji_ had been _boasting?_

What the hell was he thinking?! Was that all he thought of her, all he thought of that night? An... an _achievement_? Something to impress his friends? Did he have some big list in his diary? 'April 4th: Achievements today: Scored B in Math test, beat Yugo in practice fight, screwed Uriko'?

'Extra note: I even managed to make her think it meant something,'?

No, her mind argued wildly, no, he wouldn't _do_ something like that. This is _Kenji_ we're talking about for Godssakes, he feels bad if he steps on a cockroach, he _wouldn't do something like this._

But then how had Lucy found out?

"Godamnit, Kenji," she whispered hoarsely, tears streaming down her cheeks, cutting rose-red streaks down her pale skin. "Why? Why did you do it? I thought... I thought I c-could trust you..."

Trust. Her whole life had been about trust - the total lack of it, for people and from people. Her whole life - all because of what she was, because of what _else_ she was - was wreathed in hatred and in mistrust. People whispering in corners. Glaring from dark shadows. Mocking her. Occasionally, outright physically attacking. Sticks. Stones. Fists. All because she could grow fur and a goddamned tail. And throughout her whole life, in a world of shadows and prejudice and darkness, the one light that warmed her, sustained her, was that somewhere, there _were_ others, who didn't care what she was. Others, who cared for her, who loved her, people she could trust and love in return. Her mother. Her sister.

Kenji.

And now that light was wavering like a candle flame in a winter breeze, a breeze carrying the harsh electrical tang of an imminent storm, and if that storm came, if Kenji had betrayed her, it wouldn't _matter_ that there were still people who cared for her, it wouldn't _matter_, that light would extinguish because she would never be able to trust anyone again -

The sob she'd fought against so long suddenly tore from her throat and with a wail of grief she collapsed to the ground. She buried her face in her hands and wept, sob after sob wracking her body as tears dripped like rain through her reddened fingers.

Why? How_ could_ he?

_Hey, look, calm down._ her inner voice spoke again, soothing., _You still don't know for sure. Lucy's making it up for all you know. It's not exactly a secret you two are friends. And as far as this crowd of hormone-fueled perverts is concerned, that means you're sleeping together. I mean, let's face it, the idea that a boy and girl could just be friends around here is sheer lunacy, right?_

Uriko sniffled, her sobs subsiding. That_ was_ a point...

_Of course it is,_ her mind continued, a lulling, loving, voice, just like her mother; she could almost feel her warmth as they hugged, the soothing way she ruffled Uriko's hair whenever she was upset. _You remember when everyone found out that you and he were friends?_

She did. She remembered only too well; The first time they'd been seen together at school they'd come under fire from a veritable artillery barrage of catcalls and insults from the nearby watchers, the usual playground cries of "Ooo! Kenji for Uriko!" intermingled with some fairly incendiary comments about their Zoanthrope heritage. She hadn't been bothered; Kenji had. She could see it from the stiffness of his posture, his narrowed eyes. But he'd quietly ignored them and continued walking with her.

_Until?_

She smiled, despite herself. Until someone had made the very dire mistake of hurling a direct insult at her. Something about her being ugly – it hadn't stuck in her mind. What _had_, was that Kenji had shot towards the guy so fast she hadn't even realized he'd moved until a bone-cracking crunch and a scream of agony had cut the air and she'd turned to find the would-be cocky-boy reeling backwards, blood pouring from his mouth, splinters of his teeth decorating the asphalt. And Kenji, standing with blood on his fist and fire in his eye that said only too clearly he would just love for someone else to try their luck.

_See,_ her mother's voice continued,_ THAT'S who Kenji is. He'd die trying to protect you, you know that. He'd never do anything to hurt you; he loves you too much for that._

Uriko laughed and dabbed at her eyes with her sleeve.. Yes, she thought, that's who he is. He wouldn't do anything like this. She felt a crushing weight lift from her shoulders, and laughed again, louder. Of course he wouldn't.

But... even so...

...It was possible...

The freezing wedge of doubt pierced into her heart again; with a shout of frustration she leapt up and delivered a crushing kick to her bag, which flew into the air and crashed bonelessly to the floor.

Goddamnit, this was going to _kill_ her!

She had to know.

Absently, she wandered over to where her bag was cowering and scooped it up, deep in thought. If Kenji _had_ been boasting, then there'd only be one person he would have talked to. Neither of them were big on friends outside of their fellow zoanthropes; whether it was just the people around here she didn't know, but humans always struck her as being so unbelievably _stupid. _It wasn't just hatred of her kind she despised; If life was a restaurant, then prejudice was the salt – people heaped it on _everything_, regardless of taste. But just occasionally you'd find there was someone in the crowd who didn't follow the trend, who wouldn't care that she sometimes spent her nights chasing rodents or climbing buildings – who even were _envious_. They were rare as diamonds, it seemed, and even more highly prized in her book – although, she thought with a grin, she wouldn't have said no to a big, fat jewel if someone had offered - but they did exist. She was friends with three other girls; Kenji, being... well, being Kenji, knew only one.

She glanced up at the flaking paint of the steel guttering, glowing pink-orange in the evening light. The guy took a bus, damn it, so she probably wouldn't catch up taking the normal route...

She grinned. Ah, hell, Roof Road was always more fun anyhow.

Taking a calming breath, Uriko extended her hands forwards, then outwards, turning her palms upwards and raising her eyes towards the soft evening heavens. Not without an inner grin of self-mockery – okay, she had a flair for the dramatic. So what? It was fun. She closed her eyes and concentrated.

The change was... surprising. Not surprising in itself – it wasn't as if she didn't know she could do it – but surprising in that it, well, wasn't surprising. She always felt it ought to... hurt more, or involve crunching bones, or _something_. She always used to go over to Kenji's – no, her mind forcefully corrected, you still _will_, quit with the past tense here – _often would_ go over to Kenji's if the weather was lousy or if they had no other plans, and they'd snuggle down together on the sofa with a huge bucket of popcorn, buttered to artery-busting proportions, and rifle through Yugo's DVD collection. The guy had a passion for old werewolf movies – well, he would, wouldn't he – and on every single last _one _of them, the moon would come out and the main hero or heroine would shriek and collapse to the ground, writhing in agony as their transformation began, and there'd be thrashing and snapping and wailing and fur and blood and mucus all over the place. Some of them were so graphic she'd been twitchy at transforming for _days_ afterwards. You had to wonder what the zoanthropes of old went through to transform, to have stories like that popping up after them.

No, the _real_ change was altogether less spectacular. With her eyes closed, she could barely tell it'd happened at all – she'd stand there, and then her skin would itch a little, and she'd suddenly feel calmer, more confident, more graceful, and she'd open her eyes and oh, look, I'm a cat. How about that?

She felt a sudden black bubble of rage burst inside her soul, and her claws twitched involuntarily. Of course, the other reason her transformation was so subtle was because that _bastard_ Buzuzima had screwed up her morph beyond repair with his sick experiments –

_Come on,_ her inner voice chided, _No point crying over spilt milk now. You've got a mouse to catch! _

She grinned. Time to hunt...

She glanced up towards the gutter again, new, distinctly feline regions of her brain calculating a whirlwind of numbers involving distance, weight, wind speed, handholds and hazards – if only she could keep this mind for her math class. Her muscular legs bunched as she crouched and then with a yowl of glee she launched herself into the air. She cleared the ten-foot high barrier as if it were no more than a knee-height step, pulled a lazy somersault and dropped. To simply say she landed was too basic – she didn't just land, she floated down, like a bird, her four paws caressing the flat concrete roof with as little noise as a leaf landing. She grinned exultantly, her teeth flashing brilliantly in the evening light.

Oh man, she _loved_ this! Forget roller coasters, forget Hollywood super-heros, nothing, _nothing _could ever compare to this. How did humans _stand_ being so ungainly, so clumsy and weak?

She glanced around. The roof was a flat-type affair, smooth concrete punctuated with rusty ventilation ducts and the occasional grime-coated skylight. A two foot-high barrier encircled the edge, and drifts of dead leaves, mud and litter had piled up in the corners, along with old, sun-bleached footballs and other toys that had wound up here either accidentally or through more spiteful intentions. To Uriko, this was a perfect haven – her little secret place no-one else could reach, except perhaps Kenji, although he was usually too worried about what the teachers would say to risk it – Uriko had already been in trouble more times than she could remember for coming up here, but as far as she was concerned it was worth braving the wrath of her tutors to spend her lunch breaks away from the rowdy crowds below, basking blissfully in the summer sunshine.

A sudden burst of movement made her turn – a bird, looked like a seagull, too busy pecking at some scrap or other to have noticed her silent arrival, had turned to find the mother of all rooftop predators crouched not three feet away, and had exploded upwards in squawking terror, feathers flying every which way as it's wings flailed indignantly at the air. Or at least, that was how any... normal person would have perceived it. Uriko, however, was far from normal – the drastically heightened reactions that came with the awakening of her feline side caused the world to slow down around her, and the gull seemed not to be flailing but almost dancing, tumbling in a beautiful midair ballet; she could see everything, the pattern of each individual feather, the bunch and pull of it's muscles underneath it's skin, her own reflection in the perfect black pearl of it's eye. Everything, in an amazing clarity no camera, no computer, no _microscope_ could ever hope to match.

_You want to fly, little bird? Let me show you how it's done! _

Uriko exploded up from her crouched position like a sprinter going all-out for gold and _flew_ with inhuman speed across the concrete, covering the distance to the edge in three magnificent bounds. She leapt onto the partition, balanced precariously on one claw for the briefest moment, and flung herself into space. The seagull hadn't even had time to sort itself out before the feline monster it was running from flew past not ten centimeters overhead, flashing it a lazy, toothy grin that sent it into a panicked, shrieking midair tumble as it tried to fly in three directions at once.

Uriko laughed and turned her attention back towards her arcing flight, to which gravity was beginning to win the majority vote. Looked like she was gonna fall short of the next roof – not much, just a few inches, but that was all it took, and a fall from this height would definitely put a crimper on her life plans.

Good. Just as she'd planned...

A clawtip shot out at the last moment as she plummeted towards terra firma and snagged onto the guttering, swinging her round and flinging her upwards in a wild, tumbling somersault that pulled a howl of adrenalised glee from her throat. She fell, somersaulted in midair and touched down perfectly on all four paws.

Oh _yes!_ Not even a crease on her clothes stood testament to her acrobatics, not a hair out of place, not a patch of fur ruffled, and she flung back her head and laughed wildly to the sky just for the sheer hell of it.

_No _other way to travel.

Uriko's destination was on the very outskirts of the city, the furthest neighborhood there was from the school. The average hurried walk to get there would have taken at least half an hour, provided there were no hold-ups, which in a city this crowded was like asking for an ocean with no water. Uriko, leaping and spinning across rooftops and lampposts like Spiderman without the web, her journey marked with shouts of astonishment and crowds of pointing pedestrians, reached it in ten minutes. She caught sight of her target as she bounded across the lush grass of the small park edging the neighborhood, his corn-blond hair bobbing in and out of view behind the park's tall bordering hedge as he ambled peacefully towards home. She grinned and raced forwards.

The boy's amble became suddenly much less peaceful as Uriko snatched onto a treebranch and flung herself through the canopy of leaves, exploding in a feline glory of flashing claws and teeth and a howl of exultation into the air not three feet from him. He gave a yell of surprise and stumbled backwards, crashing indignantly to the pavement as Uriko, with considerably more grace, executed a neat somersault and touched down in a shower of leaves.

"What the-!... Uriko?" The boy exclaimed as recognition dawned. Uriko grinned as she caught sight of him sprawled on his backside on the pavement – probably that was cruel of her, but hey, it was fun! She concentrated and reversed her morph – her claws retracted, the sharp points melting and melding into human fingertips, and an all-body itch announced, in case her eyes – the molten gold swirling into chocolate hue, the slitted pupils retracting into black blobs - couldn't tell already, that her luxuriant fur was dissolving into pale, human skin. Lastly her muscle structure reasserted itself and she groaned quietly as her limbs seemed to turn to lead. Why were humans so _graceless?!_

She stood up and grinned towards the figure, who was pulling himself to his feet with as much dignity as he could muster. "Hey, Ben. How's things?"

"Well, pretty fine until you tried to take my head off just now," the blond-haired Ben replied, returning her teasing smile with a half-embarrassed one. Not a Japanese name, Ben, Uriko knew, but then he wasn't a Japanese student – he'd transferred over from America a couple years ago, something to do with his parents getting transferred in their company. Apparently he'd had zoanthrope friends back in America, too, so he had no qualms at all with either she or Kenji, and they'd become steadfast friends within his first week of arriving. Of course, that friendship along with his name had led to howls of laughter from the ranks of simpletons at school. Kenji and Benji. Oh, what a hoot. "Yeah, well, it's not as if you ever use it," she replied, sticking her tongue out and winking coyly.

He laughed. "So, anyway, what're you doing all the way out here? Or is this just the scenic route home?"

Uriko's grin flickered and died, the joy of the last few minutes swept away in a cold wind of dread as she remembered exactly why she was here. What if she was wrong? Ben wasn't acting the least bit strange or embarrassed – and if Kenji'd been boasting about _half_ the stuff they did on that night she'd have expected him to be as red as a beetroot with blushing – only the worry of the moment was keeping _her_ from burning up at the memory. What if Kenji really was innocent? If she asked if he'd been talking, and he hadn't, Ben'd surely mention it to him. And if that happened, it'd crush him, knowing she hadn't trusted him when push came to shove...

But... what if she was _right?_

"Hey, 'Riko?" Uriko blinked as Ben prodded her in the arm. "Earth to 'Riko! Where'd you zone out to?"

"Oh, umm, sorry," she stammered, flustered. Well, she had to do it... "Say, umm, Ben? This is, umm, kinda a dumb question, but, umm..."

"Yeah, 'Umm' is kinda a dumb question." He replied deadpan. "Come on, it can't be that hard. Or are you planning to ask me out?" He grinned easily.

Uriko laughed nervously, feeling not in the least cheerful. "Well, er, it's just that, well," she stumbled onwards, determined to force it out, "I was just wondering, umm... you see I'd heard that, umm... well... I was just wondering if, er, if Kenji'd been, umm... talking about me?"

There. It was out. The moment of truth...

The next second was an eternity. She could _feel_ the words hanging in the air round her, like a smell, like poison gas. She watched as they rippled softly and oh, so slowly through the air towards him. Like waves in treacle. She saw them reach his ears. She saw them whisper delicately to him, and then they continued on, expanding out into the street, the park, spiraling gently away until with a breathy sigh they faded into nothingness. She stared into Ben's eyes as his ears delivered the words, searching for a reaction.

Centuries passed.

And then Ben flinched as if someone had slugged him in the gut.

Uriko's heart stopped.

_No..._

"Wh-whadaya mean?" A distant voice reached Uriko's ears as the world dimmed around her. Ah, Ben. Of course... "He hasn't said anything about you. I mean, he says a lot about you, but nothing you should worry about, really."

His words were reasonable, honest. She wanted to believe him – Oh dear _God_, she wished she could! – but she'd seen it, she'd seen that flinch, and she could see through the mist the blush crawling into his cheeks. Could hear the crawling fear in his voice.

He knew. He knew what she meant. He knew what they'd _done_ together. _What she'd done._

"Well, actually, it doesn't matter." Someone spoke in Uriko's voice; it couldn't be her, because whoever it was sounded perfectly normal. Even cheerful. She could feel her face pulling itself into a smile without ever being told to. "Well, sorry but I've got to be off. See you round!!"

"Uriko, wait-" Ben reached out to stop her but she dashed past him and was around the corner before he could call out again.

It's strange, she thought, almost dreamily, as she stumbled absently onwards, unseeing and uncaring. She'd expected a storm. Her one comforting light in the world was gone forever... but it hadn't been in the tearing wind of grief she'd imagined. It was more like... as if someone had gently blown out a candle beside their sleeping child. Like a loving, tender kiss from your murderer. Quietly and serenely, her hope had been murdered...

_Kenji..._

..._why?_

She stumbled onwards. There was no more feeling in the world; she was detached, numbed from body to soul. Perhaps it was better this way. The storm hadn't arrived, but she could still sense it, muttering and rumbling around the outer fringes of her mind. It was only a matter of time before it turned inwards and crushed her... at least for the moment there was nothing...

Kenji had _betrayed_ her.

_Why?_ Why had he _done_ it?

"Ugh!" She staggered as, oblivious to her surroundings, she collided into someone walking the other way. Dimly, she heard the sound of shopping bags scattering across the pavement. A faint shout penetrated her ears: "Hey! The hell you think you're doing?!"

"I... I'm sorry, I – "she stammered, blinking in confusion. She tried to focus on the fuming figure, but she couldn't. Her eyes were functioning perfectly, she could _see_ but what all the shapes and colours meant was beyond her. "I, uh – "

"Watch where you're going! And help me pick this stuff up, seeing as it's your fault it's everywhere!"

"Um, ok, I - " She shook her head and glanced down, searching. If she concentrated she could make out an object on the ground – she stepped forwards to retrieve it and something went _bang_ under her feet, making her leap in surprise. A spray of white exploded across the pavement – she'd crushed a milk carton.

"Ahh, damn it!" The voice yelled. "What the hell is wrong with you?! You're a fucking disaster! Get outta here!"

"I, I'm s-sorry - " This was all too much – she couldn't take any more. Any more shouting, any more insults, any more pain and hurt. She clamped her hands over her ears and sprinted blindly away, going nowhere and not caring, just anywhere she could hide from the world for eternity, away from the shouting, away from the pain and the betrayal and the jeering crowds, the hideous noise, the her and the Kenji –

- and a terrible panic rose as she felt the storm close in, roaring up through her system towards her soul, and she knew she was about to die, to drown in grief, and then it was rearing above her, a terrible malignant tsunami of emotion, and there was nothing she could do but scream in mental despair as it teetered and toppled –

It fell.

It crashed down, unstoppable, engulfing her.

But it wasn't grief.

It was rage. It was pure, unadulterated _fury._ It roared through her like a nuclear explosion. Her blood burned like liquid fire. This wasn't like back at school, with that bimbo-bitch Lucy. This was a hundred times worse. No, a hundred times _better._ A _thousand_ times.

Kenji had _betrayed_ her?

How _dare_ he!

She snarled, a deep-throated sound of utter hatred. He thought he could do that? He was going to _pay._ She was going to _make him_ pay.

She glanced around, the misty fog of confusion swept away in the burning wind of anger howling through her mind. Somehow she'd crossed half the city without even realizing it – she was only a few streets from home. She took off along the well-trodden route to her door, and with every step her rage flared all over again. She didn't know what she was going to do about him, but it was going to involve _agony_.

Two minutes later the door to Uriko's house crashed open with enough force to leave a doorknob-shaped indentation in the wall and Uriko herself stormed through, flinging her bag roughly towards the coat stand, missing by ten feet and sending it tumbling down the narrow hallway.

"Hey, careful with the door!" Her sister's voice floated down from somewhere upstairs. "I don't want to have to replaster that wall again!"

"Whatever," Uriko shouted back indifferently as she continued towards the kitchen, trampling straight over her supine bag without even pausing and grinding her heels in for good measure.

"Ah," Alice's voice echoed in reply, a touch of sarcasm tingeing her words, "Good day at school, I take it?"

"Don't ask!"

Uriko flung open the refrigerator door and snatched the carton of milk from the shelf. She'd been told, often and vehemently, that she wasn't allowed to drink from the carton, and would she please try not to finish off half the container in one go, thank you very much, but under the Uriko Mandate of Law being screwed over by your best friend and lover came under the heading of Emergency, and an Emergency meant that the milk was hers and _damn_ the consequences. She drained a full quarter-pint in one swallow, and for a moment the hints of a contented smile flickered at her white-foamed lips as the creamy liquid washed over her taste buds and slicked seductively down her throat. Milk always calmed her down – probably the feline genes. As far as calming went this time, however, it only served to pull her anger down to a modest eight on the Richter scale.

She took another swig. How to get her revenge? Spreading rumours at school as he'd done to her – at least indirectly – had a sense of poetic justice to it, but she wasn't feeling too poetic at the moment. It just wasn't enough; Besides, it wouldn't work. She hadn't any dirt on him except what they'd done together, and he obviously didn't care about _that_ getting out. No, spreading a bit of gossip wasn't nearly going to make up for what he'd done - she wanted so much more than that, and she couldn't afford to wait until tomorrow before she did anything. The rage high that was keeping her burning wouldn't last forever, and she didn't want to wimp out as she might do once it had gone. So then... straight violence? Beating the living daylights out of him... she grinned slightly. That had a straightforward simplicity she could appreciate... but _too_ simple.

She ground her teeth together and snarled. What to do?

Footsteps sounded on the stairs in the hall, and a moment later Alice appeared at the door, sisterly concern etched on her features. "Hey." She greeted as she sauntered in and leaned casually against the worktop. "Anything you want to talk about?"

Uriko took a breath, precursor to delivering an incendiary rant about Kenji, but hesitated. "Well... not really." She let out an irritated sigh; much as she wanted to take off his head to anyone who'd listen, if Alice found out about what they'd done together it'd make Uriko's own rage look like a kiddie's tantrum compared to the blistering she'd receive. And that prospect only made her even more pissed off - knowing that her sister still thought of her as a kid. She wasn't a damn child any more, she knew about STD's and pregnancy and all that, they'd taken precautions – she knew what she was _doing_, for Christ's sake!

Alice's eyebrow arched as she read the mounting pressure behind Uriko's eyes. "Oooo-kay," she said. "One of those situations, then." She thought for a moment, then continued. "If you don't want to talk about it that's fine, but I'm thinking... boy trouble?"

Uriko barked a humourless laugh. "You might say that." She'd long ago ceased being impressed by Alice's ability to read her mind – Uriko herself was useless at gauging moods. Just so long as she couldn't read any deeper.

"Ah. What happened?" Alice continued; when Uriko remained stoically silent, she sighed. "Well, fair enough. I'll leave you to it, then." She pushed herself off the worktop and smiled reassuringly to her sister. "I'll be upstairs if you need me..." She headed for the door, then paused and turned back. "Umm, you know, if it's any help... I'd say it's probably best to tackle your problem head-on, get it sorted as soon as possible, you know? Brooding never helps, you know – especially where relationships are concerned."

Uriko blinked. "Umm, yeah," she replied, a sudden smile breaking out across her face as a plan occurred to her – so obvious. Why hadn't she thought of it before? "Thanks, sis. I think I will."

Alice smiled and left. As she climbed the stairs, however, a slight frown rippled across her features; she hadn't liked the look of that smile...

Had she stayed, she'd have liked it even less. As Uriko contemplated her plan it grew, until she was grinning from ear to ear, and there was nothing humorous in her expression. It was the gleaming, purring smile of the cat who can see it's prey running into a dead end, a smile that sent mice and men scrambling in silent terror for escape.

She'd dismissed it as... well, because it was the wrong way to go about it. But why _not_ tackle her problem head on?

With as much force as she could muster. Corner him and kick the _crap_ out of him...

Her fist tightened around the milk carton at the thought and crushed it contemptuously. White blood spilled through her fingers and trickled slowly down her arm. She blinked as the cold sensation pierced her thoughts and glanced to the floor, muttering a curse as she saw milk – that precious elixir - pooling around her trainers. Damnation. Milk just shouldn't be wasted like that - it bordered on a capital crime in her book. She grabbed a towel and threw it over the offending puddle, trying to quiet the more unscrupulous feline voices that were telling her, well, so what if it's on the floor? She wasn't _quite _that catlike, thank you very much.

But now she was _really _pissed – Not satisfied with bragging, now Kenji'd gone and made her spill milk. There was no turning back after that.

Sauntering over to the wall-mounted phone, she lifted the receiver and struck the auto-dial button labeled 'Yugo/Kenji'. A few purring rings sounded, then a click as someone answered on the other side. "Hello?"

"Oh, hey, Yugo!" Uriko greeted brightly, her voice abuzz with finely-crafted levity. "How's things?"

"Ah, hi 'Riko!" Yugo replied – his voice was light-toned, just your average twenty-something speech, if you didn't count the slight hint of lupine in the back of the throat; a flicker of a growl that most people who didn't know him took for irritation, or perhaps even a threat. "Yeah, I'm fine, thanks. I take it you're after Kenji?"

_You don't know the half of it_. "Yeah, I'm after him, all right. Could you put him on?"

"Sure thing." There was a muffled shout of "Hey, mole-boy! It's your girlfriend!" – Uriko's fist clenched around the telephone receiver – followed by a rapid thudding of someone running down stairs. Then –

"Oh, hey, Uriko! How are you?"

And suddenly the receiver was falling from Uriko's hand as she lost her grip and collapsed against the wall, shaking uncontrollably as a fresh tide of grief wailed it's way up through her system. His _voice_, _her_ voice, the voice of her friend, her carer, her _lover_... that boy was _dead_. And the voice on the line was everything in her life that had any meaning left, everything she had lost, and the voice of his murderer... She stuffed the trailing sleeves of her kuyata into her mouth as a tearing sob threatened to escape her and squeezed her eyes shut against the pinpricking of tears until blue stars flashed in her vision. _I'm not going to cry,_ she chanted in her mind, _I'm not going to cry, I'm not going to cry, I'm not going to cry..._

Gradually, the prickling disappeared. Gradually, her breathing slowed. Her body relaxed. She slowly pulled her hands from her mouth and looked down to stare at the telephone receiver, swinging lazily on the end of the cord a few inches above the floor. Like a gallows corpse in the wind. A tinny voice sounded from the earpiece... almost like those horror movies, she thought absently, where the girl's parent / lover rings and she leaves the phone swinging as she runs panicking from the murderer...

"Uriko? Hello? Are you there? Uriko?"

She stared down at the mouthpiece in nervousness – and, yes, fear. She was afraid. Could she stand to hear that voice again? Could she talk to him without breaking? How could she bear to hear that again? The voice of a dead friend?

"Hello?"

_You have to_, a voice within her replied quietly. _You have to, or you'll never get your revenge..._

At that, something inside her hardened, and she nodded resolutely. Of course I have to, she thought to herself, her anger rising. It's not the voice of a dead friend – that friend never existed, did it? It's the voice of a con. A murderer, a cheat, a _liar_.

The last traces of fear dissolved in the acid pit of her bubbling anger, and she strode forwards and snatched up the phone receiver, disgusted at herself. How could she be so _weak_ as to break down like that?

"Hey, Kenji!" She replied, laying on the false cheeriness in her voice. She was an excellent actor – even _she_ couldn't have seen that she was anything but cheery if she'd been watching. Don't let him suspect...

"Ah, 'Riko!" Kenji's voice answered. "I was beginning to worry for a moment. Where did you disappear to?"

"Umm, well..." She weaved an embarrassed tone into her reply, "I sorta dropped the receiver."

"Dropped it? Still the clumsy kitten, I see." Kenji laughed. Uriko hissed under her breath as her anger rose again: _Don't you dare call me that, you double-crossing bastard_. But she willed herself back into calm, and forced herself to laugh sheepishly.

"Yeah, I know. I was just swatting at a fly and I got kinda... enthusiastic. Damned irritating things."

"True indeed." Kenji agreed. "So, are you doing anything tonight? There seems to be a new film on at the downtown cinema we could go to see, if you're not too busy that is."

"Say, I've got a better idea," Uriko replied, "You know that old alley near the train station? The place we used for training a while back? D'you think we could meet up there?"

"Huh?" Kenji responded, a hint of confusion apparent in his voice. "Umm, well, sure, 'Riko, but... what for? If you're planning on training there's far better places, you know..."

She smiled to herself. "I know. But..." she lowered her voice and purred seductively into the mouthpiece. "It's... _secluded._ And I've got some _special _training in mind. Very... _physical_ training, mole-boy. Get me?"

She half wondered whether she'd been too subtle – to anyone else such a comment would have been just short of shouting distance from ripping her clothes off right there in front of them, but Kenji, for all his sharp wit in school and battle, was slower on the uptake than a shopping-centre lift when it came to suggestive innuendo. But he caught it. And she could tell because, bless the little innocent that he was, he got all embarrassed.

"W-wha? Um, ah, eh, I uh -" Uriko grinned: she could practically feel the heat of his blush through the receiver. "I'll be waiting for you," she cooed softly. "Don't take too long, okay? 'Cause I'm really _desperate_ to get started..."

"U-umm... s-sure thing, I'll, umm, I'll be there..."

It said a lot for his nervousness when he could stutter an 'umm', she thought absently. "See you there, then, mole-boy," she breathed, every nuance oozing with a sexuality she was far from feeling, "Twenty minutes, okay? Make sure you're there..." Without waiting for an answer she hung up the phone.

A sudden savage hiss of breath sounded through clenched teeth as the rage she'd kept bottled up throughout the conversation strived to escape, her hands clenching and unclenching spasmodically. Innocent boy? Yeah, right. No innocent boy went round bragging to all and sundry about his sexual achievements. That was a hell of an act he could put on. Was he even now rushing upstairs to his journal? "Dear diary: Hey, guess what? I'm gonna score a second time tonight!"

_Damn it_, how long had he been fooling her? Had their entire _friendship_ been a con? Had all that just been an elaborate plot to bed her?

_Umm, you know, I don't wanna be a prude or anything,_ Uriko's inner voice sounded, _But how do you know it isn't an act? I mean, it was really, really convincing... and the evidence from Ben is a little, umm, circumstantial, if you know what I mean. I mean, a bit of a twitch isn't tantamount to anything, is it?_

Uriko blinked as a tiny blossom of hope unfolded; but then shook her head sadly. No, she thought, a bit of a twitch mounted up to a lot; if there really had been nothing he'd have had no reason to get so embarrassed. He'd just have asked what the heck she was on about, but he'd already known, hadn't he?

She glanced at the clock. Eighteen minutes until she was supposed to meet Kenji in the alley. The trap was set: now she just had to get there. She turned and headed for the door, pausing briefly at the foot of the stairs. "I'm goin' out for a while," she yelled up to her sister, "I'll be back before dinner, okay?"

"Sure thing," Alice's reply floated down. "Where're you off to? Going to see that new film? I hear it's a kicker."

"No," she called back, "I'm gonna go kick some arse. See you later!" She was out of the door and gone before Alice could ask her what the hell she was on about.


	2. Chapter 2

Second chapter: As before, critics wanted, praise welcomed :D Suggestions for other ending #s would also be nuce, cos this one's all rushed off and crappy. Points of comment for this section:

- Uriko's reaction on seeing Kenji: Crappy? Or too dramatic?

- Your views on the fight scene

- Anything else.

Read on!

Whispered Words: In health and in sickness. Part 2.

A damp, unpleasant breeze fingered coldly around Uriko's exposed legs, slipping questing tendrils down her baggy sleeves and neck, and she shivered as she pulled her kuyata more tightly round her slim frame. Damnation, but she should have changed before coming out here. What _was_ it about alleys that made them so... ikky? The rest of the city still basked in the liquid-ruby light of a warm summer evening, but as far as this little patch of hemmed-in concrete was concerned it might as well have been the middle of a Murmansk winter. Where the heck could a cold damp breeze _come_ from on an evening like this? At least there was light: while not an iota of sunlight could ever filter down into this place – some bright spark in the planning division had had a damn great platform built about thirty feet up that completely blocked out the evening sky, God knew why - the back of the alley – well, more like a yard, really - opened up onto a section of the city railway line, and enough of the dirty-yellow glow of the track lamplights filtered through the chain-link fence separating the two to outline everything in a thin sheen of grainy amber. Not that there was much to look at, save a few nondescript bin bags stashed in one corner, a couple of semi-rusted bins in the other, the occasional crumpled sheet of newspaper tittering shakily in the breeze. None of the other paraphernalia, though – dead rats, dog dirt and addicts' needles, the mainstay of back alley trash throughout the city, almost overflowed the area with their absence. Someone had to clean this place on a regular basis – or maybe animals and junkies just didn't fancy the decor. Whatever the reason it'd made a damn good place to train before they'd found anywhere better. Heaven knew there were much worse back alleys in this city to practice in – training amidst and falling over into rats and dog crap made her want to puke at just the thought. Her mind wouldn't even allow her to consider the implications of falling onto discarded drug-blood-and-virus smeared needles. Nasty, to say the least. But some alley traditions would never change, and one of those was the damp, unpleasant breeze.

The other was the smell. A smooth blend of wet cardboard, decomposing garbage and, yes, dog crap, and about as subtle to the nostrils as a well-aimed brick. And _where the hell_ was that dog shit smell coming from?! There wasn't _any!_

All in all, Uriko considered, not the sort of place you'd want to come to share a romantic evening with your partner. Good God, if Kenji fell for _this_ there was no hope for the guy at all... not that there would be any once he got here, she thought as her pyres of anger smouldered darkly.

A soft tap echoed from the alley entrance, a tiny corridor of space between two buildings; the sort of sound made by someone dropping to the ground with practiced silence. A moment later the sound of approaching footsteps sounded in her ears, growing gradually louder, and she drew in a sharp intake of breath. She'd spent enough time around Kenji to know the rhythm of his steps. It was him...

A cloud of butterflies took wing in her stomach. Suddenly she needed the bathroom _real_ bad. This was _crazy_, this was totally _stupid_. She still had a few seconds, she could transform and run away from here, from all of this –

_No!_ She closed her eyes and took a deep breath, willing herself to anger. _He betrayed me, he USED me. That's shouting distance from fucking RAPE._

Tap, tap, tap. His footsteps approached through the dusty starved darkness, cautiously, quietly but quickly, the hallmark of an education in stalking – in assassination - far too ingrained to undo, and with every step the anger grew.

_He used me. _Tap_. He used me._ Tap_. He USED ME!!_

Her eyes swirled, molten gold layering over chocolate brown as her growing rage inside her vied for control, screaming at her to _morph, get him, what are you waiting for?!_ She concentrated, forcing herself to revert. Surprise was the key...

Tap, tap, tap.

And then he appeared, stepping smoothly out of the shadows into the grainy light of the alley. A dark fluid-amber statue in the dusky darkness.

Uriko's breath jammed in her throat and she clamped her hands over her mouth as a squeak of – pain? Pleasure? Anger? Terror? Grief? Joy? – threatened to cry out into the air; an overpowering dizziness engulfed her as time seemed to funnel out and slow to nothingness. The incident at the phone was nothing compared to the maelstrom crashing through her heart at seeing him here, now, in the flesh. In the back of her mind she was vaguely aware that she'd begun to stumble, but in this sudden land of no-time nothing moved, not even herself; only the panicked signals from somewhere around her stomach region were informing her of her slow backwards tumble, and they were drowned out in a bubbling flood of nausea as she stared across at her lover's shaded figure, unmoving, poised silently in his confident stride. Memories were flensing through her consciousness, memories poison-tipped with agony, memories of their past times together... memories of _him_. The wispy outline of his dark crown of hair, shadow made softness. The hair she'd run her fingers through as they'd cuddled together on Yugo's couch, that she'd lovingly laid her cheek on as she'd ridden him piggyback, breathing it's wondrously languid, giddy scent. The soft-edged contours of his body, muscles rippling alluringly beneath his faded skintight cotton shirt with each step as he approached; muscles with which he had swung her through the air joyfully in his arms during their walks in the park; shivering, throbbing muscles her hands had frantically traced as they –

_Don't think about it, don't think about it - ! I won't cry, I won't cry, I_ won't_ – _

- those lips, those soft, smiling, oh so sweet lips, lips that spoke and laughed, lips that had kissed her lips, that had kissed so lovingly her stomach, her thighs, her –

_- No!_ A rising rawness clawed at her throat and jabbed needles into her eyes; her breath hitched slightly as she fought to control the raging conflict inside her. _All that is gone! Gone! Remember what he is, remember what he did! _

A trailing strand of golden-brown hair wound it's way lazily into Uriko's vision as her idle backwards fall continued, twisting and undulating in the half-light. Gazing past it, she saw Kenji's booted foot inch towards the ground as he took another step. Saw his head – oh, so slowly! – turning to face her. Saw the gleam of recognition light up in his eyes as he noticed her. His lips twitched, the beginnings of a smile –

- _those lips that kissed you so lovingly? It was those same lips that slandered you, dammit! It was those damn lips that spread your most intimate secrets over the whole school to be laughed at – _

"Hey, Uriko!"

_- and it was in those same damned dulcet tones that he did it!_

Without even so much as a gracious warning, time snapped back into normality, prompting a squeal from Uriko as her backward stumble suddenly and emphatically asserted itself – legs scrambling crazily at the ground as she fought for balance, she covered several metres in a mad 45° backward sprint before a foot landed in the right place, bringing her to a less than graceful stop. _Gods,_ she thought as she gasped for breath, her heart pounding from the adrenaline surge, _I need to do that less often_.

Kenji's quiet laughter rang through the air as he ambled towards her – or ambled as much as someone could when their walk of preference happened to be a stalking tiptoe. It was hard enough to get Kenji to smile at anything, Uriko knew, and so to get him to actually laugh out loud she must really have looked like an idiot. Sure enough, his teasing voice floated over a few moments later; "Have you been drinking, Uriko? I thought you didn't do that sort of thing..."

"Y-yeah, well, you just startled me, is all," she stammered embarrassedly as she hastily smoothed down her kuyata, focusing intently on each crease and wrinkle so she wouldn't have to meet Kenji's eye. She could feel a rising blush creeping into her cheeks and she cursed herself mentally, both for being such a klutz in front of him, and for caring – she knew he'd betrayed her and yet still she felt flustered around him? _Dammit, girl, he RAPED you!_ "You've gotta learn to make some _noise_ when you walk, you know?"

He smiled. "As you wish," he replied. "I shall endeavour to be noisier in the future." He was silent for a few moments, then – and this time it was his turn to sound embarrassed – he began, "So, uh..." he coughed slightly nervously, then continued, "um, so... what were you wanting to, umm, practice?"

At any normal time, Uriko thought, Kenji's demeanor probably would have set her giggling till she couldn't breathe – as far as he was concerned a comment like that was being forward to the point of sheer indecency. The problem was it wasn't any normal time anymore; now, she knew better. The pyres of anger were smoldering again, and this time there was no soothing love or doubt to control them; she felt the last few forlorn droplets trickle like tears of defeat from her soul as she watched him standing there in his trademark ninja garb so nervously, so _innocently_.

_Yeah, keep on acting. You obviously didn't think bragging to all and sundry was too 'forward', did you? You bastard._

She held out her arms invitingly and gave a coy smile. "Come here, mole-boy, and I'll show you _exactly _what I'm wanting to try..."

He didn't need inviting twice; he stepped forward eagerly, yet gently, and then she was enfolded in his loving embrace. She wrapped her arms around his waist and pressed her cheek against the soft, warm contours of his chest with a contented sigh, her ears thudding with the passionate beats of his quickening heart –

_- Careful, Uriko – _

_I know... I know... just one last cuddle won't hurt, though..._

She felt his lips brush delicately through her hair and plant a soft kiss against her forehead. That tender touch had whispered so against her skin – against her heart – in a hundred hugs before, and each time it had brought with it the warm reassurance that Kenji... would always be there for her. Would always be there to love her and comfort her, even as the rest of the world so churlishly and cruelly spat venom against her heritage. Would be... almost, perhaps, like the father she had never had. But even with her soul so rended at his betrayal, even knowing of his duplicity, she couldn't quite suppress the warm shiver of comfort that washed through her body at his touch. She tilted her face towards his, her eyes closed languorously as his kisses moved tantalizingly downwards, brushing gently - but oh, so intensely! - against her eyelids, her rose-flushed cheeks, and down, down towards her own lips, breathless, tingling with anticipation –

"You told Ben, didn't you."

The words were whispered, but they reverberated in the air like the echoes of a gunshot. She felt his probing lips freeze in shock against her skin. Heard him gasp sharply. Her eyes snapped open and suddenly there was no warmth but dark fire in her pupils as she locked her gaze with his. His eyes were wide, shockingly white in the gloom, alight with shock, fear –

Her fury erupted like a fusion warhead.

_But no confusion_.

"Uriko, I –"

The punch struck with horrifying force. Every ounce of weight, every fibre of muscle, every hissing droplet of wounded spirit and screeching blood-lusted feline rage powered up through her arm and exploded forwards into his stomach with all the raw, unstoppable power of a cannon blast. The blow literally lifted Kenji off his feet, wrenching a gasp of pain and shock from his throat and sending him crashing across the unyielding concrete, to crumple into a boneless heap against the far wall.

"You _bastard!_" Uriko shrieked as Kenji rolled onto his knees and doubled over, retching and gasping for air, and suddenly a stinging river was washing down her cheeks as those tears, those tears she _swore_ she wouldn't cry, came flooding out in torrents of burning grief. "You absolute _bastard!_ I thought I could _trust_ you! D... _damn it!"_ Her voice choked off as words failed her; the madness, frustration, rage and shame and loss were flooding her mind till she felt like she'd explode and there were no words in existence strong enough to vent them. Tears flensing into the night air behind her, a terrible wordless drawn-out cry of fury filling her ears, she charged.

"Uriko," Kenji rasped as he staggered to his feet, his eyes gleaming with a panic as intense as his former friend's madness, "W-wait a second - " But she didn't – possibly nothing could have made her stop anymore, except the dying echoes of the snapping of his bones, his groans of agony. His blood. He ducked as her fist slashed viciously through the air, whipping harmlessly through his thick-set hair where his jaw had been only a second before, and his hand darted to his belt and thrust towards the ground. There was a harsh _bang_ and a cloud of acrid smoke filled Uriko's eyes. She was prepared, however – years of sparring practice with her so-called _friend_ had taught her every one of his tricks, and he'd used that one far too often to fool her anymore. She thrust out her hands, catching herself against the cold concrete wall, and lashed out blindly with a back kick. Her foot contacted something solid and she snarled with satisfaction as a yelp of pain reached her ears. She spun round as Kenji staggered backwards from the unexpected strike and threw a double punch that slammed into his chest with a sound like a thick-set book being dropped onto a floor – _wumph!_ – sending him flying off his feet with a ragged gasp of pain.

He couldn't stay stupid forever, though; her attacks had been unexpected, but his hardened battle instincts were surging into the fore even as he tumbled, and with impressive speed he flipped himself upside down and planted his hands on the ground, turning a potentially damaging fall into a graceful backwards cartwheel, hair and clothes flying as he spun head over heels and landed upright in a perfect low stance, back leg locked straight, torso turned forwards, open palms guarding head and groin. A small part of Uriko observing doled out grudging respect at his smooth recovery. The rest of her was already surging forwards, her face contorted and a feral snarl escaping her throat; her fury only heightened by his flourishing acrobatics and the fact that she'd gone and given him a chance to recover. She had to keep him off-balance if she was going to win –

"Uriko, wait - !"

"Shut the hell _up!_" Her shriek and her foot scythed the air at the same moment, the latter sweeping round to knock his forward leg from under him; rather than leaning his weight forwards to counter as she'd expected, however, he shifted his weight to his back leg and Uriko's snarl dopplered into a shocked squeal as, like a snapping rope in a tug-of-war contest, the full strength of her kick knocked his leg aside with as much resistance as a shadow, sending her spinning crazily off-balance. Kenji deftly dropped into a forward splits and swept his leg in a wide arc along the ground, flicking Uriko's remaining foot from the ground with insolent ease and flipping her into a dangerous tumble that wrenched an angry, terrified yell from her throat. She plummeted, limbs flailing uselessly, saw the ground rushing up to meet her –

- she was going to break her neck! -

- and then suddenly Kenji was sliding underneath her, catching her safely in his arms before she struck the concrete.

She blinked in shock, but before she could even begin to react he shoved her upwards, propelling her ungracefully to her feet.

"Huh?" Uriko spun round as Kenji leapt back up, but rather than the relentless attack he'd expected, Uriko paused. Her brow was wrinkled in confusion as her astonishment briefly overrode her driving rage, and she fixed him with a glare of incomprehension. "What the hell was that about?"

Kenji, still poised in a wary fighting stance, shook his head solemnly. "I didn't want you to get hurt."

Uriko actually choked in amazement, she was so stunned; it was like being hit in the face with a bucket, a _waterfall_ of iced water, and for a moment she couldn't even breathe. "You..." she coughed harshly, her eyes watering – from the shock or the grief, she couldn't tell; did it even matter? - and her rage boiling up through the cracks of her mind like acid lava; she hadn't thought it possible to get any more furious than she was. Showed how much she knew. "You... didn't want to hurt me?" Her head fell back and she barked a peal of bitter laughter at the cold, indifferent metal roof above the alley. Then suddenly she was flying forwards, claws and teeth and fur almost ripping her skin apart as her beast form tore it's way out of her human body and a hissing shriek splitting the air, and Kenji hadn't even time to blink before the blood-red blur cannoned into him, sending him crashing across the ground with a gasp of pain.

"_THEN WHY THE HELL DID YOU GO BRAGGING TO BEN, YOU BASTARD?!"_

Ignoring the bellowing from every muscle and bone – fear strangling his mind – Kenji rolled onto his back and his eyes widened as he saw Uriko plummeting towards him like a bird of prey, blades extended. Her claws struck sparks from the concrete as he rolled aside and leapt to his feet.

"Damn it, Uriko," he growled hoarsely, his arms trembling from pain and exertion, three crimson lines blossoming like blood-soaked roses beneath the shreds of his ruined shirt where her claws had caught him on her first attack, "I don't want to fight you! Can't we discuss this?"

Uriko leapt again, blades raking the air, the fury still burning like demonfire in her pearlescent eyes. "We-rr – have – " she roared, tigerlike, mouthparts designed only for hisses and spits mangling her speech into an inhuman rasp, each word punctuated by a clawed punch that took all Kenji had to knock aside, "– nothiiing – to-rr – damn – well – _discusss!!"_ The last shout was marked by a furious kick that slammed into his chest and sent him staggering into the wall, and she surged forwards, snarling victoriously, hair flying and claws flashing, flinging a punch with all her might at his exposed torso.

Kenji moved. She never even saw him, she didn't know how it was possible to dodge so fast, but suddenly her fist was flying with bone-breaking speed towards a blank wall where her target had been only a moment before –

The crunch echoed through the alley.

Uriko blinked dumbly as she stared in mute shock at her trembling hand. Hitting a wall like that... should have been painful...

It had. A glance at Kenji's face told her that – his face was pale and drawn, skull-like almost, his eyes screwed with exertion and his teeth clenched as he fought against crying out. The fingers of his outstretched hand twitched feebly, like a dying spider. The outstretched hand crushed between the unyielding stone and her paw.

"Wrr..?" Uriko wrenched her fist away as if Kenji's hand had suddenly caught fire and Kenji groaned and staggered backwards, clutching his injured hand beneath his arm. Even in this semi-light her keen cat eyes could see, with a kind of dreamy sense of horror, the pale pinpricks of moisture gathered in the corners of his eyes...

"Wrr... wha..?" Uriko's growling timbre wavered and melted into a disbelieving whisper as her beast form retreated soundlessly, almost shamefully beneath her skin – like a cat, she imagined absently, who has always been caught staring at the family's pet hamster and it never realized that that little rodent was important until the day the child came in and saw the blood on it's paws and screamed –

She looked down at her hand in the pale gloom, eyes wide in the dark. She flexed her fingers softly. A hand that should not have been perfect. Should have been smashed...

"Damn it, Kenji," she began to whisper as she raised her head to stare at his hunched frame, but then something in her broke and her voice rose to a wail of frustration, "What the hell is wrong with you?! You... you hurt me more than anyone could... and then you try to save me?"

"I told you," he growled, his breath hissing between his teeth, "I didn't... want you to get hurt. Could we please... discuss this... for a moment?"

"But you told Ben, damn you," She hiccupped and spun away, suddenly ashamed, as she felt her eyes prick with tears. At least it was a blessing she was out of breath; her exhausted panting masked the quiet sobs that almost certainly were waiting inside her. She'd _never_ seen him cry before...

"I don't... deny it," he replied through his own breathlessness. "But I... I never meant to... it was just... a slip of the tongue..."

Uriko spun back round, dashing the tears from her eyes. "A... slip of the tongue?" she growled. "You'd call _that_... a slip of the tongue?"

A faint wry grin tugged at the corners of Kenji's mouth. "Well..." he panted, "What about the time... I moved in to Yugo's house? And you introduced me at school... 'Hey, everyone, this is Kenji... he's sleeping with this guy I know,' you said..."

Another punch soared towards Kenji as Uriko leapt forwards again, tears flying. "That's not... the same!" she gasped, swatting air as Kenji dodged desperately. "That _was_ a damned slip of the tongue... how can you let slip... something like _that_?" Punch after punch flashed out at her target, but something was wrong, this _felt _wrong - the driving rage was slipping, shuddering like a house of cards touched by just the faintest beginnings of a breeze, and there was nothing to sustain it but yawing void of grief and desperate desperation –

_He raped you!_

_But - _

_What is there to question?! Get him! _

Kenji scooted backwards under her wildly swinging assault, blows raining against shin, thigh and forearm as he executed a series of blocks. "Uriko, _please,_" he pleaded, and something in his voice cracked in desperation, "Stop this! I never meant to... if I'd known how much it'd... I didn't tell him any detail, I _swear,_ damn it, Uriko..."

But she would not stop. Fatigue was beginning taking it's toll; she was slowing, gasping for breath, stumbling, but Kenji was in no better condition himself – his limbs were numb with fire and it was all he could do to defend. And the look in those eyes, the sheer well of despair and confusion, the wrenching sobs choking what little breath remained in her slight frame told him that this was going to continue in lieu of any other solution until she died from the strain -

Kenji leaped backwards in an attempt to gain some ground and cursed as a cold thud against his shoulder blades informed him that he was yet again against a wall. The tiny part of Uriko still driving her onwards shot forwards, it's faint blood-lusted hiss echoing through the cavernous reaches of her mind, and leapt into a clumsy flying kick. Evidently she'd learned, she thought dully; at least a kick wasn't going to hurt when it hit the wall after he dodged –

Kenji crouched and sprung with every remaining ounce of effort he had left, kicking back off the wall behind him into a tumbling half-somersault that sent him soaring over Uriko's head as she flew harmlessly by underneath. Had she the breath, she might have managed a mewl of astonishment – a leap like that, she might just have managed well-rested and with a run-up, and she had feline in her veins. That guy had _way_ too much agility. As it was, she could only blink as she bounced off the wall and spun in time to see Kenji hit the ground in an untidy forwards roll – or at least, that's what it looked like it had meant to have been, but he fumbled the landing; the exertion was getting too much even for him, it seemed, and instead of leaping gracefully to his feet he gave a startled yelp as he stumbled over his own feet and crashed ungainly to the ground.

_He's exposed! Get him!_ The last vestiges of her rage yelled inside her mind as she watched, as through a dark haze, Kenji scrambling to find his feet; he'd landed wrong, his back was exposed, he was easy prey. But she was simply too exhausted; her legs were trembling from the effort of keeping her upright, her arms were trembling just from the effort of hanging loosely; her breath heaved, her whole body burned with a screeching agony, she felt sick, she felt as though she were bathing in magma, and she wanted nothing more than to collapse and puke her guts out until consciousness abandoned her –

_Damn you!_ Her mind raged. _You're giving up! You're just going to leave him? He raped you!_

_It wasn't rape..._ some small part of herself murmured, _He never meant to – _

_You're going to believe THAT?! He deceived you then and he's deceiving you now! Now get him!_

_No..._ she whispered. Through the darkening shadows of black exhaustion she watched as Kenji scrambled up to his knees -

_What the hell is wrong with you?!_ The baying demon roared. _Coward! _ _You're pathetic! You're nothing! Are you so spineless you're going to let this rapist, this murderer walk away? You're _forgiving _him?! KILL him!_

_That's not true, sh-shut up – _Uriko's fists clenched and her eyes squeezed shut as she fought desperately against the raging turmoil inside of her –

_Coward! Weakling! Finish what you came here for! _

_I won't, shut up – _

_You were just a puppet to him! A pretty little sex toy to be used and thrown away! He never loved you!_

_That's not true! It can't be – _

_And why would he want to love you anyway? You're nothing to ANYONE, you're pathetic – _

_SHUT THE HELL UP!!_

_KILL HIM!!_

"NOOOOOO!" Uriko screamed and suddenly she was flying madly forwards, claws and teeth and fur exploding from her skin as any semblance of control vanished to the winds, conscious of nothing anymore but to end it all, silence the unbearable storm, the pain and the madness and the grief and the rage and confusion and frustration and torture and ahead was her lover and rapist and friend and protector and betrayer and she saw him turn and saw his eyes widen in horror and flash with red fire and –

- Uriko slammed into him in a waist-height flying leap with all the force of an out-of-control lorry, seizing his midriff, smashing him from his feet and sending them both powering through the air like a mad ballistic missile; they crashed against the wall and Uriko twisted, locking her legs against the concrete and kicking back –

Crash after crash resounded through the air as Uriko executed her signature take-down, leaping and smashing from wall to wall like a tennis ball shot from a cannon. Bins, bags and boxes went flying as they ploughed through the carefully stacked piles, shook mortar dust from the walls, sent the wire paneling pinwheeling through the air as they rebounded from the underside of the platform above and shot downwards –

And with a last, bone crushing crash they bulleted into the ground. For all it's impressiveness, landing was the one part Uriko had never mastered, and she yowled as the impact sent her tumbling bonelessly across the rough concrete. She came to rest against something soft and furry, hissing with a furious all-over pain – a move like that did as much to damage her as her opponent; keeping beast-form afterwards was never a good idea, but she had to if she wanted to continue this...

The last of her reserves depleting, she dragged herself to her aching feet and looked down.

It was Kenji, or, at least, Kenji in his mole-morph, sprawled prostate on the concrete; but even as she watched his beast form began to disappear, claws retracting, fur melting like chocolate into his skin, his animal grunts translating into an exhausted panting. His beady red eyes swirled into the luscious brown irises of his human form, which flickered slightly to gaze into her own... and then, like a cloud moving from the sun, the smallest of tender smiles flickered at his lips. The smallest sign of apology... but...

Then, with a quiet note of finality Uriko's knees buckledas the last of her strength left her, and with a sigh almost of dreamy relief she fell slowly to her knees and collapsed on top of him.

And then there was silence, punctuated only by their ragged, exhausted breathing and the occasional crash of a dustbin lid returning to the ground.

_Boy,_ Uriko thought absently as she lay sprawled across Kenji's heaving chest, her head lolling against his shoulder, _ isn't _this_ a familiar position..._

"You know," Kenji panted as he gazed upwards at the reddened clouds through the huge hole in the platform above where they had impacted, "You really are... very attractive... when you're angry..."

Uriko blinked in surprise as the words registered. Then suddenly she burst into a fit of the giggles. The feeling was wonderful, as if a great weight had come sliding off her shoulders. "W-what?" she gasped, raising her head to gaze in disbelief at her friend, "What... the heck... have you been _watching_, Kenji? American movies?" She fell back against him and laughed harder than ever, the sound echoing through the quiet air, sweet, cooling tears of mirth streaming down her face, soothing the rawness that her earlier tears had burned.

"Well," Kenji responded, grinning, "Yugo always told me... to tell you that... if I ever got you angry. I take it... he was joking?"

"Y-you might say that," Uriko giggled, "T-that would explain... why he could never get a date..." She spluttered and then dissolved into laughter again, and after a moment Kenji joined in, until the whole alleyway resounded with the sound of their infectious mirth.

"Oh, man..." Uriko chuckled as she wiped her eyes on Kenji's shirt. "Well, that was a heck of a training session. You didn't really seem on top form today, though."

"No, not really..." Kenji replied, a slight note of hesitation permeating his voice. "I... couldn't hurt you, not when it was my fault in the first place..."

Uriko wriggled round until she was lying fully on top of him, face to face. "So, come on then," she answered, propping her head up on her hands, her elbows either side of his ears, and gazing down into his eyes, "Tell me: Why did you tell him?"

Kenji blinked. "You... don't sound all that angry..."

"I used up all my anger back there. I think, anyway. Now I'm just curious."

Kenji sighed and looked away. "I really didn't mean to," he replied heavily. "I guess... I just couldn't help myself."

Uriko raised an eyebrow. "You 'can't help' boasting about your sex life?"

Kenji looked momentarily shocked. "What? No! I didn't - you think I gave him _details_? I – all I said was..." he looked away again, and Uriko could see embarrassment creeping into his eyes as he hesitated, then continued, "... all I said was that... you were beautiful, and that... it had been... amazing..."

Uriko felt something swelling inside her, something entirely different from the bile of grief and fury that had choked her only minutes earlier; she could feel her heart hammering in her chest and Kenji's heart to, thudding in sync just below her own. What was he saying?

Then... he _hadn't_...

She remained silent as he glanced briefly up at her, then gazed back into the ether. "You... you're the best thing that ever happened to me, you know. I just... couldn't keep that to myself. And... I really am sorry. If I'd known how much it'd hurt you..."

She smiled softly; had she any left shed, she might have had tears in her eyes. "You really are an idiot, you idiot," she whispered, a faint, embarrassed blush tingeing her cheeks at his words. She lowered her head and pressed her lips delicately against his; he hesitated for a moment, as if afraid this couldn't be true and she was about to attack again at any moment, then slowly kissed back, raising an arm to brush his hand gently against her cheek. Uriko made a contended sound somewhere between a moan and a purr deep in her throat; she closed her eyes as a wonderful light-headed giddiness swept over her and ran her fingers lovingly through his tousled hair, pulling him closer...

Eventually they broke apart, panting slightly. Uriko's head was spinning from the sweet, sweet touch of his lips; for a moment she couldn't even think straight. About a year ago she'd got properly drunk for the first time in her life, when she'd been home alone one night and, bored, had decided to rifle through Alice's bookcase to see if there was anything worth reading. What she'd found was a lot more interesting to the young, curious teenager than mere books; tucked behind her _Harry potter_ collection she'd come across a litre-bottle of vodka, around a quarter empty. Having never really tried the stuff before, she'd figured Alice wouldn't notice if one mouthful went missing. Just a swig wouldn't hurt, right?

Wrong. The stuff had hit her like an intercity train. That first mouthful – admittedly a _big_ mouthful – had kicked so hard she'd spent the better part of two minutes sprawled on the thick mauve carpet giggling insanely at the sheer hilarity of the colour of her top, a rather dull off-colour green.. After a while she'd fallen into a bleary torpor, warm and cozy as if she'd sunk into a hot bubble bath, taking an occasional nip from the bottles – for some reason two others had appeared from nowhere, but she seemed to have gained the extra arms to hold them and had decided not to worry about it – and dreaming befuddled dreams about chasing oddly Kenji-shaped mice, and it wasn't until she'd happened to catch a hazy glance at her drink that she'd realized, through the fluffy pink clouds of spirit heaven, that her occasional nips had drained almost half the contents. Those feelings, or something like them, were flooding through her now; similar in a way, yet at the same time as different as reading a book on parachutes and taking a running leap from an aircraft into fifty thousand feet of sky. No amount of alcohol could ever hope to compete with the sheer purest joy, the burning heat and blissful giddiness that but one touch of those lips could evoke.

_And that's not to mention that I'm not going to feel like my brain's trying to smash it's way out of my skull afterwards..._

And only – was it really only a couple of hours ago? – she'd both feared and hoped she'd never, ever feel those sensations again as long as she lived.

They gazed at each other for a moment, smiling softly, and Uriko leaned forwards to kiss him again. Abruptly Kenji winced, a startled hiss of pain escaping between his teeth; shifting her weight, Uriko had leaned herself onto one of his injured areas. "Oh!" she cried as she saw his reaction, "S-sorry-!" She shifted again in an attempt to regain her former position, but all she accomplished was another strangled hiss as her knee caught him in the side; judging from that, and the look on his face, he wasn't too healthy there either.

"Would you mind," Kenji growled, his face twisting as she squirmed hurriedly backwards, her expression one of acute flustered embarrassment, and banged into a raw patch on his hip, "not moving around quite so much."

"S-sorry," she murmured as she stopped wriggling, blushing as Kenji grinned half-mockingly at her. Now straddling his stomach – _Oh look, _her inner pervert mocked,_ another familiar position, this one, if you just shuffle back a bit_ – she brushed a lock of hair from her eyes to cover her confusion. "Um..." she hesitated, "How much did I hurt you?"

"I'll survive," Kenji grunted in reply as Uriko began to run her fingers lightly down his chest, checking for injuries so she could better avoid them, "A lot of cuts and bruises, I think, but nothing feels broken." He grinned wryly. "Though that's not for want of trying – ow!"

"Sorry," Uriko apologized hurriedly as her fingers brushed across a frayed patch of his shirt; in the half-light she thought she could make out a faint patch of red on the fabric. She decided not to look too closely.

"I doubt I'll be morphing for a while, however," he continued, almost matter-of-factedly, as if they were discussing just one more training session down at the park - Uriko wondered whether she ought to feel offended or relieved that he was viewing the whole thing so calmly. "You seem to have honed that bouncing attack somewhat... I don't remember it being that brutal – ow!"

"Sorry," – her fingers skipped over a ragged tear in his shirt. She sighed inwardly; she hadn't remembered it being that brutal either, and she certainly hadn't remembered it hurting herself as much as her opponent. Fortunately there was always a certain amount of regeneration when morphing either way, and the worst of the wounds seemed to have healed. Though what was left was bad enough; she felt as if she'd been hit by a truck, and it was going to be a long, long time before she had the stamina to morph again either. She was just glad that her little game of human pinball hadn't ended up breaking bones. Morph-healing extended to flesh wounds and no further... attempting to heal a fractured limb through the same method was never a good idea, given the obvious complications in having your entire internal structure forcefully rearranging itself around snapped, disjointed and above all sharp-edged fragments of rib or femur...

"Although," Kenji sighed regretfully as she continued her search, "I probably deserved it... I guess even I should have been able to realize how stupid it was to say anyth – ow!"

"Sorry." _This place echoes some, doesn't it?_ She leaned forwards, more carefully this time, and propped her head up on her hands again, her sky-blue eyes gazing down with an air of appraisal into Kenji's own earth-browns - appraisal and, perhaps, a slight tint of pity, as would a parent to a small child demanding to know _why_ it was wrong to take all the toys off that boy over there. But there was humour there, too. "Yeah," she replied, "I guess you should have done, boyo. You're lucky I'm in such a good mood about it, is all I can say."

Kenji gave a wan smile at that. "Of course." He sighed quietly. "So... where do we go from here?"

They lay in silence for a moment, the soft semi-muted sounds of the city humming gently in their ears like an insect swarm in a moonlit garden. Quiet droning of cars, a rising, then fading statacco of high heels as a crowd of club-goers trotted by the alley entrance. A catcall whistle, a gaggle of giggles. The drawn-out honk of a horn. The world wasn't intruding, not yet, Uriko thought. This alley had been the entire universe for them, not a few moments before – had for her, at least. Now, the rest of the world was gathering again, drifting, wraith-like, round the fringes of this little pocket of existence. Waiting for their permission to rejoin. But, for the moment, there was a borderline – in here, these four concrete walls, shielding this little ocean of calm suspension. Out there, the rest of the world, with it's ensuing problems, it's complications. It's people. Those at school, and the rumour, the knowledge, spreading outwards like a slow infection. But for the moment, it was out there. For the moment, she was in here, in comfort and warm safety. She sighed. "I dunno," she replied quietly, laying her head against Kenji's chest. "I can't imagine what school's gonna get like once all... that... gets around. At the very least, things'll get... troublesome... and what I did to Lucy's only gonna fan the flames., in retrospect."

"Hmm?" Kenji queried. "Why? What happened?"

"Oh..." Uriko chuckled softly, her eyes idly following a paper bag as it skipped across the concrete in a gentle breeze. "She's who I... found out from. I... persuaded her that these... rumours were nothing more than that."

"'Persuaded?'"

"Yeah..." Uriko grinned. "There's a rather Lucy-shaped dent in the school locker racks." She sighed. "People'll be wondering why I got so mad at a 'rumour', though... they're going to put two and two together eventually, and even that lot of morons can't come up with '5' all the time."

Kenji chuckled, then sighed. "Sadly true, I guess." His brow furrowed as something seemed to suddenly occur to him. "Say..."

"Hmm?" Uriko queried wordlessly, lifting her head as Kenji glanced into space, his eyes narrowing in that patient way she had come to recognize over the years. It took a deal of effort to get used to the subtleties in Kenji's expressions. It was like trying to read a French novel without bothering to learn but a smattering of the language first – you might get the bare gist of it if you were lucky, but the fine point would almost certainly be lost, and practically no-one who wasn't Uriko could ever hope to decipher his expressions past the absolute minimal level. His face was an ivory mask he removed only in the company of those he truly trusted, and even then – even with her – only hesitatingly; possibly (She had guessed, but could never bring herself to ask) even now, he could not fully bring himself to believe that he was liked, appreciated, loved; that if his friends saw past into his inner self, then all pretences of friendship would be abandoned... But as with all masks, the trick was to look to the eyes. And, looking into his eyes now, she could see he was weighing a delicate question in his mind, subjecting it to close scrutiny. Literally – his gaze was focused intently, as if the question itself was hanging in the air a few feet in front of him as he checked it over for flaws or shoddy paintwork. Something he always did when thinking hard; just one more little oddity she'd had to get used to with him. But then, she thought wryly, other people might do just the same thing... if there was anyone else in the world who actually thought about anything in the first place.

"Um..." he began hesitantly, "I don't suppose I could – "

"Ask a question?" Uriko grinned at Kenji's pained expression; he didn't like being obvious. Underneath the smile, though, her thoughts darkened – his hesitation, and the fact that he'd asked if he could ask, meant that in his examination of the question he'd found razorblades attached. Possibly she wasn't going to like this; but after a small hesitation she replied, "Yeah, go ahead."

"Well... I was just thinking..." He hesitated again, and Uriko's eyes narrowed fractionally; she probably _really_ wasn't going to like this – "Um, I mean... Does it really matter if word of... of us _has_ got out, really?"

She was right. She didn't like that one bit. "Didn't that little tiff back there give _some_ hint, Kenji?" she growled. "Of course it damn well matters – or are you planning on spreading it around some mo – "

"Nonono," Kenji interrupted hastily, holding up his hands; Uriko grudgingly fell silent. "I think I phrased that wrong," he continued. "What I meant was, there's not really been all that much damage done, has there?"

A little better, she thought, but still a definite zero on the comfort factor. If Kenji didn't think that spending the rest of their school lives plagued with taunts about what they 'got up to', being the butt of improper suggestions from possibly every jock in the damn place, even lewder rumours springing up like weeds wherever they stepped, even... her insides shriveled at the thought; dear God, Alice or Yugo finding out! – was 'much damage done' then he had some serious issues about just what constituted damage. She kept quiet however, waiting for him to explain.

"I mean," he continued, "Consider: Even before all of... this, there were hundreds of rumours concerning the two of us anyway. Everyone already believed we were sleeping together in the first place."

"Yeah," Uriko pointed out, "But now they _know_."

"True," Kenji replied, "But they already treated us as if we were anyway, so nothing really is going to change, is it? The mockery might even start to slacken off, if you think about it. It's not our relationship itself that's the laughing point for them... I imagine Lucy's already slept with almost the entire male population of the school, and for her it's a point of pride. It's the fact that we don't like our relationship being public that gets us mocked, because they know it'll annoy us. So now that it _is_ in the open, they'll think we don't mind it being public, so the taunting should die down."

"Yes, Kenji." Uriko replied clinically. "The other possibility is, they'll just mock us twice as much because our relationship is public when we don't want it to be."

"Or they'll do that." He sighed. "I'm sorry, Urko, I never meant – "

"Yeah, I know." Uriko cut him off roughly; suddenly she didn't want to hear him apologize. "Nothing to be done about it now, though, is there. We'll just have to... take whatever comes our way, and hope it blows over soon, I guess."

"Even the blackest storm gives way to day in time," Kenji agreed – sounded like a quote, although Uriko couldn't imagine from where. But then, Kenji had a habit of speaking in poetic flair anyway, so it could just as easily have been made up. She just "mmhmm"ed in agreement, listening to the murmurs of the outside world. It's people and it's problems, waiting expectantly.

But... they would survive. There would be difficulties, barriers, but they could overcome them. _Would_ overcome them. That slow infection of rumour spreading through the school... well, it would go. In time. She would contract it, she would get sick – get sick of many things, she thought grimly, thinking of Lucy's grinning, leering visage – and she would eventually get better. It might not even get any worse in the first place.

"We'll just have to see," Uriko murmured; more to herself than Kenji, but he nodded. "Well, anyway, come on, boyo." She sat up and clambered to her feet, wincing as every muscle in her body and an extra hundred she didn't even know she had complained loudly and bitterly. _Gods_, she thought, _ my everything hurts..._ "We can't be lying round here all night, can we?" She offered her hand as a help-up and he took it gratefully, pulling himself to his feet with at least twice as much wincing as she'd done. "Thanks," he groaned. "Though, if it weren't for you I could get up normally, so it's a dubious thanks, I guess."

Uriko grinned. "True. Still, if you hadn't – huh?" She frowned as she glanced at his hand still in hers. Her eyes narrowed, and she squeezed experimentally.

Kenji gave her a puzzled glance, seemingly oblivious to the pressure. "What's wrong?"

Uriko glanced back up at him, an eyebrow arched. "That doesn't hurt at all?"

"No. Why? Should it – " Abruptly his expression shifted into one of acute embarrassment as a sudden realization dawned. "Uh, I mean, um – "

Uriko's eyes narrowed at his reaction. "This hand," she continued, "was the one you caught that punch of mine in. I saw tears in your eyes, Kenji! I heard bones break! But there's nothing wrong with it at all..." She fixed him with a Look. "I know for a fact morphing doesn't heal bones, mole-boy. What's gong on?"

Kenji withered under the intensity of her gaze. "Well, um," he replied nervously, squirming, "That was sort of, um... faked..."

"Faked." Uriko's voice was deadpan.

"Well, um, you were going a little... um, mental," Kenji replied, his eyes refusing to meet hers. "I just wanted to get you to slow down for a moment, so..." He held up a hand as she took a breath to reply. "It _did_ hurt," he added hastily, "I thought it _was_ broken for a minute. It certainly felt like it. But it was just popping joints, that crunching sound. And the rest of the agonizing was genuine... I just sort of... forced the tears..."

"I... see..." Uriko growled. She turned to the side to hide her grin. Son-of-a-bitch sure was cunning...

"I was getting desperate!" he continued – from the tone of his voice, he was getting desperate now too. "It was one of those spur-of-the-moment things – I just thought if you thought you'd hurt me enough, you might slow down a little..."

"Indeed." Uriko still hadn't turned back towards him. "Well, I think you need... teaching a lesson for that, boyo..."

"W-what?" Uriko's grin widened; thee was real fear in his voice now. "Uriko, look, I'm really sorry, just let's not fight any more – "

His words abruptly cut off as Uriko spun and found his lips with her own.

"Silly boy," she purred as they broke apart. "You really _are_ naïve, aren't you..."


End file.
